Month: March 2023

The GOP is united in its desire to extirpate “wokeness.” But what, exactly, is it?

I’m not an expert on the writings of such luminaries as Crenshaw and Kendi, so I don’t really have an opinion on its true, original meaning. In any event, it doesn’t matter much; what does matter in the real world is the way the right defines it. That I do understand.

A few years ago, as part of a series on wokeness, I described it as an ideology based on identity determinism which defines straight white American men as oppressors and everyone else as an oppressed group and concludes that everything the first group says or does is presumptively false and even evil. The extreme right has run with this concept and expanded it to issues such as foreign policy, medicine, and income redistribution. As a result, in the eyes of the reactionary base, “wokeness” includes all kinds of ideas that have nothing to do with its original meaning.

I would submit to you that in common reactionary parlance today, “woke” means any person or idea challenging the notion that ordinary (i.e., non-expert) white Christian men are entitled to supremacy in every facet of life in America and, for the most part, throughout the world. I will be addressing this from a variety of angles over the next week.

Even leaving aside the hostility of the blue states, it’s not an easy job. It requires, at a minimum, numerous constitutional amendments. Some things she would like to accomplish simply aren’t possible in the real world. Given those limitations, how do we get from Point A to close to Point B?

Since the blue states would never approve the constitutional amendments under anything like normal conditions, it would either require a new convention or a coercive environment similar to Reconstruction, only in reverse. With a vengeful, more single-minded, and unchecked Donald Trump as president, that apparently outlandish state of affairs is not beyond my imagination.

Back in 2019 and 2020, I warned my readers that low interest rates were not necessarily here forever, and that dire consequences would follow if they went up. If you doubt me, feel free to look in my archives.

I’m not taking a victory lap, but current events prove that I was right. SVB would have been wise to follow my advice.

Entitlements will be another tough one for MTG. On the one hand, a principled reactionary should oppose them on the ground that they represented a huge and unwarranted expansion of federal power; on the other hand, the reactionary base is largely dependent on, and strongly supports, Social Security and Medicare. The notion of multiple entitlement systems, based on individual states, is almost certainly unworkable, and retired reactionaries in red states would lose the enormous subsidy they receive from wealthier blue state taxpayers. What should she do?

This nut is just too hard to crack. Social Security and Medicare will have to be kept as is to keep the elderly reactionaries on board.

Donald Trump has the unconditional love of about 30 percent of the GOP electorate. It would follow that the logical approach for his challengers is to wrap up the other 70 percent. DeSantis, however, is determined to compete for the 30 percent; he is positioning himself as an even harder right alternative to Trump. It seems suicidal. Why is he doing it?

I think he is basing his campaign on these premises:

1. There are no other candidates in the race with enough appeal to sweep the 70 percent. He will ultimately be perceived as the only plausible alternative to Trump. As a result, the 70 percent will fall to him by default.
2. Mirroring Trump’s prejudices (policies is too strong a word) is the best way to keep his voters on board after the primaries are over.
3. Running on the extreme right won’t hurt him during the general election, either because the state of the country will be so lousy, the voting public will vote for anyone but Biden, or because Biden’s age will catch up with him during the final sprint.

All of these assumptions are debatable, to say the least. He could be right, but the odds are against him.

Reactionaries love tariffs, so in general, red states are more protectionist than blue states. That rule of thumb is not universal, however; states with large agricultural export businesses support free trade, while some blue states (think Michigan here) lean protectionist. In addition, the very notion of individual states imposing tariffs sounds unworkable. How would MTG respond?

I’m afraid she would have to settle for the status quo on this one. The only entity that realistically has the ability to handle trade issues is the federal government.

(Donald Trump is speaking to Conservative Republicans Against Progress, or
“CRAP.” Silence! The man on golf cart is about to start.)

I have a dream! (The audience roars in appreciation.) Do you want to know what it is? (Scattered voices in the audience say they do.)

I’m going to put America in a time machine and take us back 70 years, to 1953. I was around then, so I remember it. Do you know what it was like?

America was Number One. Europe and Japan were down on their knees, asking for handouts. China didn’t count. It was just us and the Russians. That’s the way it should be.

There were no culture wars. We didn’t have drugs or crime. Christians were in charge. No one had ever heard of a trans person. Gay people were in the closet. The South was segregated. A few black people thrived, but mostly, they knew their place and shut up. Women stayed at home and had babies. Lots of real American babies. Feminism didn’t exist.

Men were respected then. They had jobs–good jobs. Jobs for strong men. They worked in mines and steel mills. They made stuff. America was the workshop for the world.

Sure, there were some things that weren’t so great. We didn’t have the internet–just black and white TV with a few channels. Fox News didn’t exist. The cars looked great, but they didn’t run very well. We didn’t know if the Russians would use the bomb or not. Taxes on people like me were way too high. And, of course, it wasn’t too great for women and minorities, but who cares? It’s about real America, not them.

Wouldn’t you rather be there than here? Vote for me, and I’ll take you there. Come home, real America! (The almost exclusively white and elderly audience erupts.)

Crapto is supposed to be a substitute for conventional banking, right? But Signature Bank ultimately collapsed largely due to its involvement in . . . wait for it . . . crapto!

Am I the only one who sees the irony in this? I hope not.

Thanks to a 19th century Supreme Court decision, the authority for the civil rights legislation of the 1960s was ultimately found in the Commerce Clause, not the Fourteenth Amendment. The amendment, however, is continuing evidence of the Union’s hateful (to the right) victory in the Civil War. It provides the authority for gay marriage and other claims based on sex and race that are obnoxious to the right. It incorporates the Bill of Rights, another right-wing grievance. It at least arguably makes the debt ceiling unconstitutional. Finally, it makes children of illegal immigrants who are born on American soil American citizens. Nothing could drive the extreme right crazier than that.

If you’re MTG, it has to go. Period.

The Commerce Clause would present a serious challenge to MTG. On the one hand, the American single market would be unthinkable without it, and even MTG probably wouldn’t want to give up the corresponding economic benefits. If you doubt that, think about the products you consumed today and count the number that were produced locally. On the other hand, the Commerce Clause provided most of the authority for the vast expansion of federal powers over the last century–including the civil rights legislation that is so loathed by the right–and would create an obstacle to state regulation of woke capital. How would MTG deal with this conundrum?

My best guess is that she would keep it in place, but require a stronger nexus between interstate commerce and any new proposed federal legislation. That would make more sense under current conditions than going back to the nineteenth century legal distinction between “commerce” and “production.”

A year ago, a large majority of Republicans supported Ukraine and opposed the Russian invasion. That should hardly come as a surprise; most GOP voters grew up during the Cold War, and they viewed the Russians as the longstanding historical enemy. Today, however, only about half of the GOP thinks we should be sending money and weapons to Ukraine. The reason for that is a single man: Tucker Carlson.

The GOP base is so emotionally tied to Fox News in general, and Carlson in particular, that it is prepared to ignore a lifetime of conditioning and embrace Putin. My observations about this are as follows:

1. While I still think DeSantis has made a tactical error by chasing Trump’s voters instead of the remainder of the Republican electorate, you can understand why he would accept the Trump/Carlson view of the war.
2. You can also understand why Putin won’t give up on the war. Why should he, when Carlson and the GOP right might deliver Ukraine to him on a silver platter in 2025?

The planning of Disney’s Florida facilities is now under the supervision of DeSantis cronies. Some of them apparently have suggested that they will try to squeeze the wokeness out of the company if it asks for new planning and infrastructure approvals.

What kind of demands will they make? Will they insist on reviewing and vetting all new Disney movies? Will they try to fire any LGBTQ park employees? Will they prohibit LGBTQ people from visiting the parks?

Nothing is unthinkable at this point. The sky’s the limit.

Somewhat unusually, our federal government possesses only enumerated powers. This was more a concession to reality than a statement of principle in 1787; given the physical size and population density of the new American nation and the quality of transportation networks, extensive reliance on the existing state and local governments was inevitable. To a large extent, however, the gray area between state and federal authority was filled in by the Elastic Clause, which consequently became the source of most of the disputes between the Federalists and the Republicans. Even Jefferson had to rely on it for authority to consummate the Louisiana Purchase, however.

If you’re MTG, this is a problem. You need to take some of the elasticity out of the Elastic Clause to protect red state autonomy; otherwise, some new Hamilton will undoubtedly try to encroach on the liberties of “real Americans”. While you’re at it, you might as well amend the Constitution to modernize and further limit the enumerated powers. Actually, that wouldn’t be a bad idea even if you don’t believe in Jewish space lasers.

In case you ever doubted it, prominent members of the right have recently made it clear that trans people have no right to exist. You also already know that trans people suffer disproportionately from depression and are sometimes driven to suicide as the result of public hostility and discrimination.

If you’re a right-winger, why not combine the two concepts? Support state-assisted suicide for trans people! It’s a logical next step after you ban vaccines.

The MTG version of the Bill of Rights would look very different from the one that has evolved over the centuries. Second Amendment rights would be absolute and unconditional. The First Amendment would only apply to conservative white Christians; the opinions of all others would be subject to strict state government censorship. The Establishment Clause would be read to authorize government support for a range of Christian denominations, and religious tests would be applied to voting and officeholding. The rights of criminal defendants would be curtailed in an effort to reduce crime. Finally, the residual powers of states would be beefed up at the expense of government at higher and lower levels. How would we get from here to there?

The most important part of the puzzle would be a constitutional amendment which explicitly states that the limitations on government in the Bill of Rights, and all of the jurisprudence following its approval, only apply to the federal government. State constitutions, legislatures, and courts would be free to enforce completely new interpretations of these fundamental rights. Red state governments would do so, with a vengeance.